Metadata Explorer

Metadata Explorer is an attempt to explore national digital libraries, pan-national digital libraries and libraries in general, in a different, hopefully useful way. Use Metadata Explorer to search the DPLA, Europeana or Digital New Zealand for a term or terms and view the metadata associated with your search. The metadata is shown as a force directed text cloud. Double click within the graph to zoom in further. Use your scroll wheel to pan back out. Drag the visualization to move around in it. Hover over a text bubble to view info about it. Click a text bubble to search the selected provider for your original term plus the clicked metadata field. The metadata fields returned vary slightly by provider based on which fields can be returned as facet counts. This was done to reduce API calls to the providers. I also plan to add Trove to the list of searchable digital libraries at some point. Metadata Explorer works best in Webkit browsers such as Chrome and Safari. It should also work pretty well in FireFox. Any questions or comments can be directed to Dean Farrell.